Up

Experience and Knowledge

Covering a lot of covered ground, but re-inventing the wheel is a necessity.

n.b.
"knowledge" = that which we believe as a result of collected experience
"belief" = that which we believe as a result of collected conjecture

Therefore, knowledge is dependent upon, and proportional to, our experience and our memories - including archives. If everybody forgot a single fact, and all record of that fact was destroyed, then our knowledge has changed, although the universe has not.

Therefore, "knowledge" is a minimal and ever-changing subset of "reality", and the former should not be assumed as the latter.

Science is the establishment of permanent memory. Art does not care for memory, only imminent feedback and impulse.

Science is doomed to chase the boundlessness of reality though, whereas art accepts them, and revels in the way in which reality cannot be "captured".

To assume a purely scientific approach to life is to live in want. The curious exploit science, but should not worship it, nor expect anything from it. Science is a tool, not a solution.

Is this why religion is at odds with science? Religion is about formalising our disdain of curiosity, the acceptance of that-we-do-not-know. It encourages belief, in an almost scientific manner. Or is religion at odds with a worship of science?

Tangential. Is memory a one-way thing? i.e. if we forget something in the past, is it any different to not being able to "remember" the future? Assumption: spacetime is causal, and we are following pre-set paths through it, and that we cannot change our future - isn't the past just the same as the future, only we have the "sense" (memory) to perceive it?